Well, Bloober Team, you're officially off the hook. I was dragged against my will, by my partner and daughter, to see Return To Silent Hill in the theater, and now Bloober's remake of Silent Hill 2 looks like an absolutely masterful adaptation in comparison. And to be clear, I thought Bloober's Silent Hill 2 remake was good to begin with. I had some serious issues with some of Bloober's creative liberties, but the game was overall good. But after seeing Return To Silent Hill, I almost wanted to replay the remake to remind myself of what a decent adaptation of the game could be.

The problems begin right from the opening frames of the movie, with James lighting up a joint while driving a Mustang convertible. James comes off as such an unlikeable douchebag throughout the entire movie. From the way he looks, to the way he acts, to the way he dresses, to the way that the movie completely misunderstands his character by apologizing and vindicating him for everything he does, I absolutely hated James from start to finish. The expectation that writer/director Christophe Gans would have this exact misogynist mis-reading of the game was so obviously what was going to happen right from the start. But I still honestly did not expect Gans to jerk off James this hard!

And nobody at Konami -- not even executive producer Akira Yamaoka (who really needs to stop lending his name and credibility to these things) -- thought to restrain this particular impulse.

One of my criticisms of Bloober's remake was how it made James look a little bit too guilty, by explicitly emphasizing things that the original game only briefly and indirectly implied. Things like James being an alcoholic, and maybe being emotionally or physically abusive. Gans overcompensates in the exact opposite direction. Oh, James is still an alcoholic in this movie, and he's still physically and emotionally abusive. But this movie completely vindicates and apologizes for all of these traits, and makes James out to be an innocent victim, complete with a happy fairy tale ending.

© Davis Films.

James is so profoundly unlikeable in this movie,
but the movie bends over backwards to apologize for him and vindicate him.

Just awful casting, awful writing, and awful direction.

I'm on the record as having said that I think From Software would've been a good candidate to develop a Silent Hill game (or a pure horror game in general). But I also said that I would not want such a game to be a "Souls-like". Instead, I think FromSoft is well suited to the Silent Hill IP because they make games that are rich in oppressive atmosphere, are good at developing rich mythologies, and which share many common themes with Silent Hill (such as corrupt religious authorities). Also, FromSoft makes games other than Souls-likes. They made Déraciné, which I loved! And which might actually be there 3rd or 4th best game.

Well, I didn't get a FromSoft Silent Hill game, but I did apparently get the "Silent Hill Souls-like" that I very explicitly did not want. Thankfully, it did not turn out as bad as I feared it would be.

Poorly-labeled difficulty options

Do yourself a favor, and do not try starting this game on the "Hard" difficulty! It's a shame that the developers chose to label the difficulty levels like they did: "Story" and "Hard". There's no "Normal" or "Medium" difficulty option. Typically, when I see a "Story" difficulty option, I assume that it's a mode that is stripped of all challenge and friction such as to allow the player to basically just walk through the game un-molested.

Don't get me wrong! I approve of games having accessible difficulty settings, even if I choose not to use them. Such stripped-down "Story Modes" are perfectly fine to include in an action or adventure game -- especially one that is narrative driven, like Silent Hill f is.

I gave up on the Hard mode after the first major boss.

This "Story" difficulty doesn't quite go to that extreme, but it is pretty easy (outside of a handful of tougher setpieces), and it renders many of the game's advanced mechanics moot. For example, you don't really have to manage Sanity or Focus at all in this difficulty level, as Sanity is automatically refilled at every save point. Stamina is still meaningful, but one-on-one encounters can almost always be defeated without depleting the sanity bar.

Almost all the consumable pick-ups, thus, can be safely ignored or sold at save points in exchange for permanent buffs (which just make the combat even easier!), since you'll rarely (if ever) need to use consumables on the Story difficulty. This has many knock-on effects for the rest of the game, such as making exploration largely pointless. Going out of your way to explore, only to find a reward of an extra item or 2 that recovers or buffs your Sanity simply has little-to-no value. Truly valuable rewards, such as inventory upgrades or a useful omamori, are few and far between. In fact, I often had to run back to a nearby save point to sell consumeables because my inventory would be too full to pick up any new ones.

I'm going to approach this review as a lifelong fan of Silent Hill 2, and as someone who is a purist and originalist. I'm assuming that those reading this review will be people who want to know how the remake holds up against the original, and I will assume that those people have already played the original. But if you haven't, or you don't want the remake to be spoiled, then consider yourself warned: this review will be very spoiler-heavy, and will become increasingly spoiler-y as it goes on! So be warned. If you sense that I'm starting to talk about something spoiler-y, then STOP READING!

I was a vocal critic of Bloober's ability to adequately adapt this game. I would have preferred to see a company like Frictional handle this (or Bluepoint, or The Chinese Room, or even FromSoft). I was especially critical of the trailer that showed the opening cutscene of the remake, which I thought had already spoiled the game.

In defense of myself, and everyone who was critical of the early trailers for this remake, Konami and Bloober did delay this game by a whole year, while Bloober apparently changed parts of the game based on feedback to those trailers. So it isn't necessarily the case that we were all wrong about Bloober and this remake, since our commentary and criticisms were apparently incorporated into the final release of the game. (Including tweaking the opening cutscene). In any case, Bloober did not completely fuck this up! This remake is competently put together, and is a fine game on its own right. It's also reasonably faithful to the original -- or at least, as reasonably faithful as I would expect for a modern remake.

Increased graphical fidelity allows more evidence of economic collapse and urban decay.

Unlike with other remakes or remasters (such as Dead Space or The Last of Us), Silent Hill 2 is old enough that it can benefit from an increase in graphical fidelity. One of my favorite changes in the new game is the increase in graffiti, litter, and other signs of urban decay. This gives the impression that Silent Hill is abandoned for perfectly normal [non-supernatural] economic reasons. Documents found within the game (some of which are even new in the remake), reinforce this. This is a small, tourist town that has a history of serial murders, mysterious deaths and disappearances, and weird occultism. That kind of stuff can really hurt the tourism trade, and send such a town spiraling into recession and abandonment.

I also really like some of the upgraded lighting and weather effects. The fog looks great, and there's even an intense wind storm that happens occasionally to try to pressure the player to find shelter in the next area that you're supposed to explore. This is the kind of stuff that I would put into a new Silent Hill game if I were in charge of designing a new game. I have some issues with Bloober's execution of this wind storm, but the idea is still good.

Bloober also makes good use of the Dual Sense controller. Radio sounds come from the controller's speaker. The lightbar along the touchpad changes color to serve as a health indicator. The impact of a melee strike can really be felt. And I even feel the gentle pitter patter of rain on the controller when exploring outside. I think there might also be directional rumbles to indicate when an enemy might be sneaking up on you from off-camera.

Technically speaking, the game looks great and mostly feels good to play. They do a mostly serviceable job, and I actually do like some of the new cutscenes, dialogue, and backstory that is presented. Visits to Rosewater Park and the Abstract Daddy boss fight stand out to me as highlights in this regard.

Bloober repeatedly toys with veteran players' expectations.

However, there are a number of fundamental design decisions that I strongly disagree with, as well as technical concessions which have dramatic effects on the atmosphere, tone, and lore of the game. Much of these weaknesses are things that critics (including myself) feared would be in the game.

The tighter camera angle removes the sense of detachment between the player and James, as well as the detachment from James and what is going on around him. Specifically, the camera (along with sound design) in the original game's forest hike into town elicited a paranoid feeling of being watched or stalked that instantly makes the player uncomfortable. That feeling is almost completely gone from the remake.

For the most part, Bloober's designs lack a lot of the subtlety and restraint of the original, and the increased focus on action and combat dissipates the atmosphere of dread that so thoroughly permeated the original. This could just be me being desensitized by over 20 years of playing and replaying the original Silent Hill 2, but I just didn't think Silent Hill 2 Remake was scary at all, and its harsher environmental design and more intense action meant I also didn't feel the sense of loneliness, isolation, or quiet, surreal introspection that the original did so well. This game is also full of bloat and excess, as if the developers were so excited that they were able to pull of several technical or mechanical feats, that they decided to copy-paste those mechanic everywhere! To the point that parts of this game start to get tedious. And that's basically been one of the core complaints with all of Bloober's games.

This game has a nasty case of "look what I can do!", and it drags out the game, and drags down the final product.

Over the years, I have frequently recommended that people stop buying new games from AAA publishers at retail. Don't buy them at all, or if you do, wait for a sale, or buy it used. This is because the massive, international, conglomerate corporations that publish these games are sleazy, scummy, or outright evil.

They underpay their employees.

They abuse their employees with cultures of crunch.

They hang the Sword of Damacles over their employees heads with the perpetual threat of layoffs.

They report record profits to their shareholders and award billion dollar bonuses to executives on a Tuesday, and then lay off hundreds or thousands of workers on Wednesday because they "can't afford" to keep them.

Some publishers even have active cultures of sexual harassment and abuse of female employees, which their HR departments are happy to cover up or sweep under the rug.

They harass and ostracize transgender employees and hold their healthcare hostage.

They fight against unionization.

They overcharge for their products.

They sell un-regulated gambling to minors.

They sell half-baked or broken products at full price.

They cancel promising upcoming products with little-to-no rhyme or reason.

They want to take away the consumer's right to own the media that we buy.

The list goes on...

Silent Hill: The Short Message is a first-person horror game about wandering through looping, decrepit hallways in an abandoned apartment building, while confronting a secret, repressed guilt. And stop me if you've heard any of this before.

Silent Hill used to be a series that innovated, that pushed the envelope. The first game basically introduced the video-game-playing public to the concept of psychological horror. The second polished the formula to introspective perfection, while also providing a template for a plot twist that would be repeated in (what feels like) every horror game since -- at least the ones not named Resident Evil. Even action-oriented games like Dead Space ripped off Silent Hill 2.

Silent Hill 3 introduced gamers to a teenage girl protagonist who actually felt like a real person, instead of being a hyper-sexualized "boob ninja" in a bikini or skin-tight catsuit, while also providing jaw-dropping technical accomplishments. The moving, bleeding, living environmental textures of Silent Hill 3's Otherworld amazing and un-precedented at the time. And it's character models and lighting looked better than many games that would be released on the following generation of consoles.

Hideo Kojima's playable teaser P.T. spawned a cohort of horror games ripping off the formula of first-person looping hallway horrors, of which The Short Message is only the latest example. And heck, even P.T. was really only popularizing horror conventions that Silent Hill 4 had already started experimenting with a decade earlier.

This is a blunt and earnest depiction of teen depression, self-harm, and suicide.

The Short Message, on the other hand, is largely a retreading of horror gaming tropes that are quickly becoming tired and stale. The looping hallways were mind-blowing back when P.T. did it -- ten years ago. But I've seen it in seemingly every horror game since, from Layers of Fear to Visage to MadIson.

It isn't just general horror trends that The Short Message is retreading either. It's also invoking well-worn and frustrating habits that the Silent Hill series just refused to break in its never-ending quest to recreate the lightning-in-a-bottle that was Silent Hill 2. The character's repressed guilt being hidden from the player and revealed as a mid or late-game plot twist? Check. The person you're looking for being dead already? Check. Silent Hill acting as a purgatory that seems to be willfully trapping people until they confront and overcome aforementioned guilt? Check.

The heaviest, bluntest hammer Konami could find

One thing that The Short Message doesn't bother to copy from its ancestors is the subtlety and nuance that Silent Hill used to be famous for. The Short Message is unbelievably heavy-handed, blunt, and melo-dramatic. This is owing, in large part, to trepidation from Konami and/or developer HexaDrive about how to depict the game's subject matter: teen depression, self-harm, and suicide. It's a touchy subject, for sure. One has to give credit to Konami and HexaDrive for so directly addressing an issue that most game publishers and developers won't touch with a 20-foot pole.

HexaDrive's depiction of mental illness is not
as hopeless and fatalistic as Bloober's.

But this is also where The Short Message lands on one of its greatest strengths. It's blunt depiction of teen suicide is at least a hopeful and optimistic one -- one that is also grounded based on the very real social and technological issues that often motivate or catalyze real-life self-harm and suicide by actual teenagers. And this is not something that we should overlook in discussion of The Short Message. It's almost the polar opposite of how Team Bloober (the company that is developing the Silent Hill 2 remake) has historically treated the same topic. Bloober has always shown abuse victims as totally, fundamentally broken individuals for whom death or suicide is a welcome release that spares the world from their burden.

In contrast to Bloober, The Short Message wants depressed teens to know that they are not broken, that they can get help, and that there are people out there who care about them and would miss them and would be there for them in their times of need. The Short Message wants people to know that recognizing the red flags, and talking to the person can save their life, and that, for the depressed individual, things will get better.

If nothing else, The Short Message has its heart in the right place.

And let's face it, teenagers aren't exactly known for subtlety or nuance. Teenagers do tend to blow things out of proportion and be melo-dramatic. So it's hard for me to hold The Short Message's overly-blunt and melo-dramatic dialogue against it. Yeah it's cringe-worthy at times, but it's cringey in exactly the way that real-life teenagers are often cringey. There might also be more intentionality behind the blunt, cringey dialogue than is apparent at the surface level. Does the heavy-handed and cringey dialogue represent the literal events as they actually happened? Or are we seeing the world as the teenage character sees it?